The roots of Valley Machine & Tool, Inc. go back about 50 years. My father, Forrest Borders, worked for Toledo Metal Spinning in Toledo, Ohio. They produced spinnings for Alloy Products Company, in Marion, Indiana, among others. Alloy Products was a manufacturer of parts, sheet metal fabrications and weldments, (including machining, etc.), for the aircraft engine manufacturers of that time, primarily Curtiss Wright, G.E., and Pratt & Whitney.

The demand for spinnings was increasing drastically and lead times were demanding. Mr. Emil Garlati (then Executive Vice President & General Manager of Alloy Products) convinced my father to come to Marion, Indiana, and start a spinning company. This became Hoosier Metal Spinning. My father was president of that company. Alloy Products liquidated in 1958 when the big crunch hit the aircraft industry. But HMS survived and continued to produce spinnings for the aircraft industry. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Garlati became active in HMS and changed the company name to Hoosier Metal Fabricators, producing weldments and fabrications, primarily for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft.

HMS had been producing parts for the JT-13 engine since its design inception in 1956; a major program at that time. This engine later became designated as the J-58. Much much later it was finally learned that the application for this engine was the SR-71 Blackbird Aircraft. It was during this time (approximately 1960 until 1978) that B.H. Aircraft, Saffran Engineering, Hoosier Metal Fabricators and others were major suppliers to Pratt & Whitney not only on the J-58 Program, but the F-100, F104, RL-10 and other programs as well.

Under Mr. Emil Garlati, Hoosier Metal Fabricators opened an additional facility in Stuart, Florida in 1976. It was anticipated Pratt & Whitney would win the supersonic engine contract. In 1978, HMF consolidated by moving the entire facility to Stuart, renaming the company E.R.K. Mfg. E.R.K. later sold to Chromalloy American Corp. and is still in Stuart under the name of TurboCombustor Technologies.